Iron Ore Import Pier, No. 122, c.1950
Windy Point, Delaware River, Philadelphia PA
© John Mayer,
Workshop of the
World (Oliver Evans Press, 1990).
Windy Point has been an
important wharf site for the Pennsylvania Railroad and
its successors since the mid-1800s. The coal and iron ore
piers are twentieth-century improvements to the area.
Four domed fertilizer holders were added to the complex
in 1988.
Conrail modernized the coal
pier in the late 1970s, enabling it to handle 2,500 tons
of coal per hour and to deliver coal to vessels with
drafts up to a 40 feet. The coal pier includes a thawing
shed (for winter operations) and is capable of mixing
coal grades during the loading of vessels. Two parallel,
rotary car-dumpers that can handle 77- and 100-ton
railroad cars, dump the coal onto a conveyor belt that
loads the coal on the ships. Pennsylvania and West
Virginia coal is exported from the pier to European,
Korean, and East Coast markets for use by utility
companies and residential heating. 1
The iron ore pier is used by bulk vessels delivering ore
from Canada and South America. The unloading buckets
handle both "mud" ore and pellets, and can remove 17-ton
bites from the hold of ships to a hopper, where the
material moves by conveyor to ground storage or a loading
hopper. The loading hopper weighs the ore as it is
delivered to each car, thus eliminating the need for
scales on the tracks. The ore is then shipped to steel
mills in Bethlehem and Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and
Weirton, West Virginia.
1 Larry DeYoung,
"Amtrak
and Conrail, Spring Tour," Chapternews, (the newsletter
of the Oliver Evans Chapter of the Society for Industrial
Archeology), Vol. 1, No. 1, (Summer 1984), p. 2.
Update May
2007 (by
Joel Spivak):
Demolished.